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Streamline Your Business Processes For Enhanced Efficiency

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In the pandemic world, the way our business is run is taking priority over revenue and profits. With more people facing unemployment, including your customer base, individuals are less likely to spend excess money on services or products. Even your most loyal customers and clients will be more frugal with their cash. It’s more crucial than ever that you conserve your revenues. Rather than spending money, you need to think about how your venture can save the pennies. Being more efficient tends to mean less financial wastage. Take a look at how you can streamline your business processes in an attempt to survive the Covid-19 world.

Saving Time

Time costs money. You need your staff team to be focused on the most worthwhile tasks that can save your business cash. Think about honing a mature digital process automation policy to ensure that there is less time spent on repetitive tasks within your company. You can generate more efficient workflows without the need for any coding by using a drag and drop facility. You can even identify bottlenecks and work on making your processes more fluid. This, coupled with an excellent document management system, means that your staff can be released from tedious, repetitive tasks to focus on more crucial considerations. Marketing, funding and staffing will be more high priority facets of your business in the coming months.

Staffing

No one wants to fire staff – this is the worst aspect of being a boss. While you want to conserve as many roles as possible, a decrease in revenue and profits may result in the need to streamline staff. Be responsible when shaving off wage commitments. Make your redundancy packages as comprehensive and generous as possible. Talk to staff members empathetically, and make it clear that you will be there to help them locate new positions elsewhere. Staff who are made redundant can feel bitter (understandably) so if they choose to burn their bridges, don’t be too upset. As a caring employer, try to restructure your business to save as many jobs as possible. Explore pay cuts or part-time working to keep as many of your staff on as possible. Lead by example and forego your bonus and a chunk of your wage to show that you are all in this together.

Outsourcing Overview

If you utilize outsourcing for your benefit, you need to do an audit to see if you can claw back any cash. Do you really need a social media manager? Can you keep this function in house? If you can continue your IT troubleshooting and your blog posts within your firm, it’s time to forego the more expert outsourced capabilities. This is money that can be saved. While your online presence may take a small hit, the traffic won’t be there to attract in any case. To increase efficiency, you need to bring these business functions into your remit. It may involve a restructuring of your firm, but this could see you through an economically uncertain time.

Follow this guide and streamline your business processes for enhanced efficiency.

5 Best Strategies to Streamline Your Workflow

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StrategyDriven Process Management Article | 5 Best Strategies to Streamline Your WorkflowYour workflow is an essential part of making sure your business is at peak performance. However, there will always be areas of improvement that can remove otherwise redundant tasks or repurpose them into something more useful. But how exactly can you streamline your workflow without causing yourself too much of a headache?

What You Should Be Doing to Streamline Your Workflow

There are a number of things you can do to streamline your workflow. From making sure that you have the necessary manpower to automating various functions. However, not all of these strategies will be a winner and increase your productivity. So we’ve put together a list of the best strategies that you can use to streamline your workflow.

Observe Your First Workflow and Figure Out What Works and What Doesn’t

The very first thing you should always do whenever you plan out a workflow change is making sure you observe the workflow you’re trying to change. This lets you figure out what can be changed or removed from your process. The time it takes to observe your initial workflow will vary depending on your business, so make sure you’re ready to invest time in doing this.

Keep Everything Documented

Having documentation might seem to be a trivial matter, however, many businesses simply make changes and just move forward with their business without a paper trail behind them. This paper trail will help you in the future in case the new workflow has flaws that need to be ironed out or to cover yourself if something goes wrong.

Look for Areas You Can Automate

Automation is the way of the future for many businesses. Not only do you eliminate the need for a person to do the job for you, but it also eliminates human error. Manual work is some of the biggest problem areas of most workflows because of how it highly depends on the person doing it. An automated script will simply do it perfectly every single time. This let’s you shift your manpower to areas that truly need a human operator.

Involve Your Staff With The Changes

Your staff are the ones responsible for making sure that your business stays afloat and getting your products and services to customers. If there are people that would be the perfect help for figuring out what you need to change in the workflow, it’s your staff. They’ll be able to tell you exactly what you need to do to streamline your workflow. Interacting with them early on also let’s them prepare for the workflow changes that they’re going to have to do

Have the Right Person For The Job

We’ve previously mentioned that your staff is highly responsible for the success of your business as a whole while also being your best advisors when doing workflow changes. Your choice of staff can also heavily matter when it comes to making sure the work that needs to be done is done effectively. So a good strategy to improve and streamline your workflow is to have the best staff that can fit in with your business. There are some great ways you can do this. One of the best ways is to get a staffing and recruiting company to find the right candidates for you as they find candidates that fit in with your company culture and general needs.

Final Thoughts…

Your workflow is indicative of how effective your business will be. So it only makes sense to ensure that it is as streamlined as much as possible. With these streamlining strategies in mind, you will have no problems ensuring that your workflow is the best it can be.

Understanding the Importance of Business Process Design

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StrategyDriven Process Management Article |Business Process Design|UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF BUSINESS PROCESS DESIGNBusiness Process Design is one of the most critical steps of BPM that needs to be designed after the proper analysis and detection. The core purpose is the identification and implementation of the optimized process that ideally meets the expected requirements as per the strategic business needs.

Business Process Design for strategic management carries significant importance due to the availability of specific interpretation. The process is more strongly associated with the development of cost-effective approaches that can ideally be implemented for the perfect execution of various tasks involved in a business. However, every individual has his perception of understanding multiple aspects, but it is quite essential to understand the importance of business process design before pursuing any of the businesses.

If you haven’t identified your business process needs appropriately, then it’s the right time to pull up the socks. Here in the present discussion, we will highlight the importance of business process design.

Importance of Business Process Design

BPD is important for endless reasons including:

Proper Alignment of Operations with Business Strategy

To change or modify the business strategy usually requires improving multiple operations being performed by different people involved in a business. It is also a natural phenomenon that people find it challenging to accept the changes, so they resist it mostly. That’s why the rules, processes, and the individuals that are part of old strategies can create a significant impact on the latest policies.

It gets facilitated by Business Process modeling by:

  • Properly assisting executives and managers of the organization in sustaining reliability in all the business processes. It all can be done by keeping a proper eye on the entire operations and strategy of the organization.
  • By ensuring that the operational tasks and activities of the individuals are correctly aligned with the strategic goals of the organizations. If there is any misalignment in the strategies and objectives, then it may cause failure in proper executions. Even if the organizational tasks are performing optimally, the overall success of the project cannot be assured.
  • By the proper implementation of “Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR)” by adequately analyzing the current performances and altering them to enhance the performance. The significant aspect of business process analysis is the proper identification of bottlenecks and unproductiveness in the process and ultimately improving them.
  • Properly allowing the process agility, the capability to modify and communicate the processes in no time. It results in taking the better advantages of the latest opportunities of the business or tackling the business challenges.

Enhances Business Process Communication

One area that plays a significant role in creating a successful business is the presence of a clear idea about the tasks an organization has to perform and the goals it has to achieve. How these goals can be made and what the roles and responsibilities of every individual are. Clear communication regarding the operational processes is essential for the proper facilitation of the team members of the organizations.

The proper communication and documentation is done by Business Process Modeling because:

  • Process modeling ensures the provision of common uncomplicated language with simple communication methodology. It provides accurate information with comprehensive decision rules.
  • It is optimal for transferring practical knowledge from one individual to another and better trains the new people in the organization. It all can be done by performing a complete documentation process and following the guidance properly.
  • Reducing the probable danger of losing the staff members of the organization that may result in trailing business process knowledge.
  • Properly start the documentation of business processes.
  • Properly converting the experience of the team members in the documented form.

Improves Consistency and Proper Control

All the successful organizations correctly identify and manage the business processes and maintain consistency throughout the period. The process control and flexibility is the input and a core component that plays a vital role in the success of the business. Process control instruments are of great benefit if they get executed properly.

It is possible by helping with:

  • The proper formalization of the processes that have not been appropriately documented, which have been revolutionized as informal knowledge.
  • Proper execution of the processes in a consistent way because it is quite unrealistic or non-professional to rely on the individuals to remember all the data. Instead, the written documented data provides more authentic information.
  • A proper decision making procedure by excluding the guesswork as the documented business data can provide better information.
  • Fastest solutions to any business concerns in the most elegant way.
  • Gives a proper charge to people involved in the business.
  • Provides proper support to business compliance initiatives, including ISO 9000 and Six Sigma.

Augments Operational Effectiveness

  • Nowadays, in the era of technical advancement, all the business managers try their best to utilize all the resources for the maximum revenue generation optimally. There is no room for ineffectiveness and depletion of resources.
  • The analysis steps of business process modeling, along with complete simulations, helps the managers to make the best use of all the available resources to enhance the effectiveness and efficiencies.
  • It helps in the reduction of process cycle time and identifies the areas that can be improved.
  • It helps in improving the efficiencies of the existing resources and tries the best to provide enough training to do more with limited resources.
  • It helps in providing risk-free experiments and supports providing ideas for further process improvement.
  • It encourages the process of critical thinking ideas so that the latest changes can be implemented for further improvement.
  • Process analysis is useful for optimal utilization of existing resources that can help in enhancing the overall productivity of the organization.

Increases Competitive Advantages

All the advantages mentioned above ultimately result in doubling the competitive edge in the market for all those organizations that have spent enough time in improving the business documentation.

Some of the companies have practiced this business process modeling that not only helped them in generating better ideas but implementing better business models as well. The consistent refinement in the existing business models provides a great room of improvement with a successful process modeling.

A small step towards improvement can have a more significant impact on the overall organization. Those minor refinements are usually of higher value as they can help in giving better competitive advantages over the core opponents available in the market.

Effective strategic planning is the key that makes your ideas unique and better than others. However, the execution can be assured by proper planning and improving overall communication skills. Additionally, the points mentioned earlier explicitly highlight the importance of effective business modeling that cannot be ignored at any cost.

Final Words

With no proper vision, mission, and strategic planning, running the business is more like traveling on the unknown paths that never lead towards the desired destination. Also, this is where most of the businesses suffered and it can become a major cause behind business closures. That is why the implementation of business process modeling is the need for all the latest business concerns.

If you want to run a successful business where everyone works with the proper alignment, then you must think about implementing the practical strategies, tools, and techniques that are essentials for the growth and sustainability of any business.

Your success has a lot to do with the appropriate planning; otherwise, all your efforts and resources can be wasted.

Fueling Business Process Management with the Automation Engine that Can!

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Organizations deploy automation technologies as the primary resource in their Business Process Management. Gone are the days were BPO meant Business Process Outsourcing, with Robotic Process Automation technology fueling new millennium enterprises, BPO has taken on a new meaning, Business Process Optimization.
 
In the recent past, businesses had only external, third party vendors to rely on for major projects, operational emergencies, and other labor-intensive initiatives that required resources they did not have. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) meant businesses had to succumb to the high-cost, untimely, and unskilled labor in order to remain in operations.

Today’s C-level executives understand peripheral management of their critical applications, data systems, and shared services is not an effective, efficient, secure, or financially-feasible effort and require more robust, permanent solutions for assimilation into their BPM.

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About the Author

Richard MilamRichard Milam is the president and CEO of EnableSoft. Prior to founding EnableSoft, in 1995, Richard was a partner and Senior Vice President of FiTech PLUSmark, and held other positions in Information Technology, Operations, and Sales.

Why do we gather information from buyers?

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Information, when used to influence or sell, has cost us untold loss in business and relationships. It actually causes resistance.

Information Causes Resistance

For some reason, we maintain a long-standing belief that if we offer the right people the right information at the right time, presented in the right way, those it’s intended to influence will be duly impressed and adopt it. But that’s erroneous. Just think how often we

  • patiently explain to our kids why something is bad for them,
  • present a well-considered idea to our boss,
  • offer great data as rationale to lead change initiatives,
  • offer brilliant pitches to prospects to explain our solution

and how often our brilliant delivery and logical (and probably accurate) argument is not only ignored but rebuffed. Certainly the ineffective behaviors continue regardless of the logic of the information we offer. Are they just stupid? Irrational? We’re ‘right’ of course: we’ve got the rational argument and data points.

But do we?

We don’t. And we’re wrong. We’re actually creating resistance, losing business, destroying relationships, and impeding change.

Here’s why. When we present rational data, or make arguments based on logic or wisdom or knowledge, and hope it will sway an opinion or get a new decision made, we’re putting the cart before the horse. While the data itself may be terrific, the timing we use to present it stinks. You see, until there’s internal buy-in for change people have no place to put the information.

As outsiders – leaders, sales professionals, coaches, managers – we are engaged to amend the status quo of clients, prospects, or staff, using information as the rationale for change. But information does not teach someone how to change: information is a knowledge issue, not a behavior choice. Change is a systems problem, not a misunderstanding problem.

Let me explain. People and teams, companies and families, are each unique systems with components that buy-in to agreed-upon rules -idiosyncratic beliefs and maps of the world – and determine our behaviors. So someone, or a company, with ‘green’ beliefs won’t adopt non sustainable activities, and who/whatever is uncomfortable with these accepted beliefs aren’t admitted into the system.

Offer Information Only When System Ready For Change

It is only when parts of the system seek a new level of excellence and can figure out how to change without disruption will any sort of change be considered, regardless of our initiatives as outsiders to influence the change. If the system had recognized the need to change and knew how to fix it congruently they would have fixed the problem already.

At the point the need for change is considered, even by a small part of the system, the system must get buy-in from everything and everyone that will touch the new solution and knows how to change its underlying rules in a way that insures minimal disruption. In other words, no buy-in/no agreed-upon safe route forward = no change considered = no information accepted: the information doesn’t fit anywhere, can’t be heard, can’t be understood. We end up pushing valid data into a closed system that doesn’t recognize the need for it.

Telling kids why they should clean their rooms, telling prospects why your solution is better, telling managers to use new software doesn’t create the hoped-for change, regardless of how cogent the information except where the kids, buyers, managers were already set up to/seeking change and know how to move forward congruently (i.e. the low hanging fruit).

Here are a couple of simple examples.

  1. As you run out the door to get your daughter to school your spouse says, “I think we should move.” Huh! “We’ll speak more tonight,” you reply. On your way home you notice a great house for sale and you buy it. Do you think the information about the house is relevant to your family at that point (even if it’s the perfect house)?
  2. You and your team are getting ready to launch a new product you’ve been developing for two years. Your boss tells you the company has been bought out and it may affect the launch, certainly effects next year’s budget, your work location, and the team. Then a sales person calls selling team building software. Do you think the information about the software is relevant at this point (even if it’s a perfect solution)?
  3. You’re a consultant hired to lead a team through a reorganization. The team is stable, has been working successfully together for three years and enjoys great productivity and camaraderie. Do you think the information about the rationale of reorganization will be adopted effortlessly and effectively?

It’s not about the need or efficacy: change cannot happen until the system knows who or what:

  • will be affected by the new solution;
  • an acceptable solution should be that considers all;
  • the criteria that must be met;
  • the parameters for change to ensure minimal disruption;
  • the level of buy-in or change necessary;
  • the new rules and norms that must be adopted.

As I say in Dirty Little Secrets: the system is sacrosanct. We learned about homeostasis in 6th grade: anything that is seen to be pushing the system out of balance will create resistance. Giving information to any part of the system before everything is managed first merely causes resistance as the system fights for balance.

And so, our brilliant, necessary, cogent information gets ignored, resisted, objected to, or misunderstood and we must handle the ubiquitous objections and resistance. Hence long sales cycles and implementation problems.

Conventional sales, marketing, training, coaching, and leadership models use sharing and gathering information at their core. I’ve developed a model called Buying Facilitation® which is a generic decision facilitation model that enables a system to manage change and manage all of the behind-the-scenes elements needed to garner buy-in first; information is offered once there is agreement for adoption. If you’re a coach, negotiator, seller, purchasing agent, leader, doctor, or implementer add it into your current skills. Then when it’s to offer information, your clients will be ready for it and eager to accept it.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method www.sharondrewmorgen.com in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

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StrategyDriven Process Management Forum

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Processes govern the performance of all organizational functions.  While integrated with each other, they should necessarily be efficient within their own right.

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